Rose for Emily
Faulkner’s A ROSE FOR EMILY
The possible meanings of both the title and the chronology of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” have been debated for years.
What is not under debate, however, is that the chronology deliberately manipulates and delays the reader’s final judgment of Emily Grierson by altering the evidence. In other words, what the chronology does is as important as when the events actually take place. In the same way, what the title does reveals as much as the debate over what the rose means. The only rose that Emily actually receives (putting aside symbolic roses for the moment) is the rose in the title, which Faulkner as the author gives to her.
Just as the story’s chronology is a masterpiece of subtle insinuations, so also is the title in its implications for the structure of the story.
Previous attempts to offer a single explanation for the rose in “A Rose for Emily” highlight how many possibilities exist. In one sense, Homer could be the rose (Fenson and Kritzer). A combination of the rose-colored bedroom and Homer as a dried rose could serve as “a relic of the past” (Weaks 12). Homer’s body could be like a rose pressed between the pages of a book, kept “tucked away in a seldom used, rose colored room which at times can be opened” (Kurtz 40). In another sense, it might be the narrator offering a rose to Emily: either “as a final tribute” by preserving the secret of Homer’s murder (Nebeker, “Emily’s Rose” 9); or, conversely, the narrator, “unwittingly, offers little more than ‘bought flowers’ in tribute to Miss Emily” by not recognizing the truth until the hair on the pillow is found (Garrison 341). If these various symbols in the story are petals in the rose, it is important to note that the “Rose” of the title gathers all of these references together in a way that moves beyond any one source. Rather than focusing the interpretation of the rose on any number of internal elements (Homer’s body, Emily’s state of mind, the
The possible meanings of both the title and the chronology of William Faulkner’s “A Rose for Emily” have been debated for years.
What is not under debate, however, is that the chronology deliberately manipulates and delays the reader’s final judgment of Emily Grierson by altering the evidence. In other words, what the chronology does is as important as when the events actually take place. In the same way, what the title does reveals as much as the debate over what the rose means. The only rose that Emily actually receives (putting aside symbolic roses for the moment) is the rose in the title, which Faulkner as the author gives to her.
Just as the story’s chronology is a masterpiece of subtle insinuations, so also is the title in its implications for the structure of the story.
Previous attempts to offer a single explanation for the rose in “A Rose for Emily” highlight how many possibilities exist. In one sense, Homer could be the rose (Fenson and Kritzer). A combination of the rose-colored bedroom and Homer as a dried rose could serve as “a relic of the past” (Weaks 12). Homer’s body could be like a rose pressed between the pages of a book, kept “tucked away in a seldom used, rose colored room which at times can be opened” (Kurtz 40). In another sense, it might be the narrator offering a rose to Emily: either “as a final tribute” by preserving the secret of Homer’s murder (Nebeker, “Emily’s Rose” 9); or, conversely, the narrator, “unwittingly, offers little more than ‘bought flowers’ in tribute to Miss Emily” by not recognizing the truth until the hair on the pillow is found (Garrison 341). If these various symbols in the story are petals in the rose, it is important to note that the “Rose” of the title gathers all of these references together in a way that moves beyond any one source. Rather than focusing the interpretation of the rose on any number of internal elements (Homer’s body, Emily’s state of mind, the
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